| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name
 | Date | Lines | 
|---|
| 1093.1 |  | ALLVAX::ROTH | If you plant ice you'll harvest wind | Fri Jun 30 1989 14:31 | 5 | 
|  | �                 Give answer to the nearest foot.
    ... using a slide rule :-)
    - Jim
 | 
| 1093.2 | Slide rule if you wish. But.... | PSYCHE::ROOS |  | Fri Jun 30 1989 14:48 | 4 | 
|  |     
    OK.   Set up the solution.   If necessary write a computer program
          to solve it from there.
    
 | 
| 1093.3 | 44 | DEC25::ROBERTS | Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem | Fri Jun 30 1989 17:43 | 6 | 
|  |     To the nearest foot, I find the answer to be 44. However, the answer
    MAPLE gives me is 44.498 so only a slight inaccuracy might push the
    answer to 45. 
    
    					/Dwayne
    
 | 
| 1093.4 | Same Answer - 44 feet. | PSYCHE::ROOS |  | Wed Jul 05 1989 12:23 | 6 | 
|  |     
       That is the same answer I got.   44.4922 feet.
    
       The accuracy depends on what your calculating device does with
       solving for the solution to 2640.5(sin X) = 2640(X).
    
 | 
| 1093.5 |  | ALLVAX::ROTH | If you plant ice you'll harvest wind | Thu Jul 06 1989 07:07 | 50 | 
|  | �       That is the same answer I got.   44.4922 feet.
    
�       The accuracy depends on what your calculating device does with
�       solving for the solution to 2640.5(sin X) = 2640(X).
    Which is actually the point of the problem - to analytically process
    the equations and eliminate the massive loss of significance that
    results when subtracting nearly equal quantities.
    Let l = 5280 be the track length, d = 1 be the expansion, t = 1/2 the
    angle subtended by the arc of length (l+d), r be the radius of the
    circular arc, and h be the height of the bulge.
    Then
        r*sin(t) = l/2
        r*t = (l+d)/2
	sin(t)/t = l/(l+d)
	1 - t^2/3! + t^4/5! - t^6/7! + ... = l/(l+d)
	t^2/6 = d/(l+d)/(1 - t^2/(4*5)*(1 - t^2/(6*7)*(1 - ...)...)
    Since t is small, this forms a rapidly converging sequence of
    approximations for t^2, and even neglegting the tail of the series
    gives better accuracy than the answer quoted above.
    Also
	h = r*(1-cos(t)) = r*2*sin(t/2)^2
    Using a first approximation to t^2:
	t^2 =   0.001136148456731680
	r   =   78337.305672595523
	h   =   44.4971912816139739
    Iterating the expression for t^2 gives:
	t^2 =   0.001136148456731680
	t^2 =   0.001136213000318023
	t^2 =   0.001136213003984796
	t^2 =   0.001136213003985004
	t^2 =   0.001136213003985004
	r   =   78335.080504554166
	h   =   44.4984550191007981
    - Jim
 |